Shouldn't Be
by bestia
Summary: A contemplation of appearance and justice. No slash, this time. Yes, even if you squint


Mozenrath shouldn't be pretty. In fact, by all rights and in all fairness, he should be considered ugly indeed. His features were glaringly abnormal, an insult and curiosity to look upon.

For starters, he was as tall as a beanpole and twice as skinny. Where others of his gender pursued muscle and sculpting their bodies to a firm ode of health, Mozenrath seemed to carelessly throw that aside. Whether this was out of laziness, ignorance of how to properly care for one's body, or total unwillingness to do anything like anyone else was unclear. But the fact remained, under his clothes Mozenrath was all sharp, unnatural angles, corners and bones. His stomach seemed stretched, taunt over his bones and his arms so meat-less one would wonder how he did not snap them when utilizing them in daily activities. His legs were long and mean, clumsy like a young colt. He was gangly, and too tall for the limitations of his grace.

He moved like a long limbed puppet, as if his will was not his own. You'd understand completely, the metaphor that is, if you could see him walk. It was to be understood that Mozenrath did not walk. He stormed, but then again, his body seemed moved by another, thrown by a mighty gust of wind hurtling without any control over the matter.

Furthermore, there was no in-between when it came to Mozenrath. When he was not moving between point A and point B, Mozenrath was collapsed, bonelessly sprawled in chair or throne. He was the puppet once more, cast aside, tossed in a corner, waiting dead-eyed and broken until his puppeteer's return.

Mozenrath was, unaccountably, unarguably an unhealthy man, and his weight was only one of the many symptoms.

He was gaunt and used, and the product of one hour with the sorcerer would be enough to gather why. Mozenrath was one of those questionable people who seemed like they didn't care whether their own actions were enough to warrant another day of living. Mozenrath was the kind of person one would be moved with passion to run up and shake angrily, because for the life of you, you could not understand why they did not have the sense to take care of themselves.

Mozenrath did not sleep enough, spending many nights up till the early morning hours bent over books, tablets and scrolls. He seemed oblivious or unaffected by the fact he was using more of his energy than he was gaining, for while he grew himself more and more short tempers and black shadows beneath the eyes, he persisted on not eating like he should as well.

Mozenrath ate only when it was convenient or when he had nothing else to do, in his mind, both rare enough occasions in of themselves. It was just that when pitted against his studying, collecting, plotting and aggressing, food fell to the bottom of the priority list. Hunger, when it rose up in the form of pain in his stomach, was an annoyance, and therefore subject to his resentment. It would be met head on and absolutely _not_ given in to, as if to teach his physical needs their place when it came to his will.

Already Mozenrath was feeling the consequences of his poor lifestyle. He would suffer black outs, in which one minute he was standing and the next sitting on the floor in pain. He would curse and rise, and throw himself forward. His body would howl, naturally, in protest, the lesson not learned. In the cold, he was at elemental mercy, the first to feel drafts, and the feeling would stay deep in his bones.

His temperament was the creator and crafted in respects to the effects his health had on him. He would become snappish, irritable as he dueled for supremacy over his own body. It was a well of possibilities as one wondered what he was like in good health, with a full stomach and rejuvenated spirit.

Then there came the issue of his skin. There was no polite way to put it, if one cared to that is. Mozenrath was pale, pallid, and sickly; he stuck out from the robust, tanned bodies of his hardy desert peers like the sorest of thumbs. His skin was soft and thin, its lack of coloring making him most uncomfortable in the desert sun, burning and sweating and wilting. His strange coloration might have been a lineage born thing; Destane refused to tell him of his parentage, and he himself just did not remember anything about his family. It was most likely due to his lack of outdoor activity, which, in his mind, there was no practical use for.

There was no doubt about it; Mozenrath was setting himself up for a collapse, and a devastating one. One day, after all was drained, squeezed, and twisted from his body, Mozenrath would fine himself with a dried out husk of a frame, and would sink into it and be lost forever as a consequence. The state of his body only made it easier for the gauntlet's dark siphoning of his flesh to flourish.

It could be controlled, that was one truth he could not deny. He could exercise, eat right, go out and live. But no, he would not do that. Since he first felt the want to prove himself a long time ago, nothing was enough, not even the impressive magic of the gauntlet. And so the efforts he could have spent saving himself were spent gaining newer and better powers and skills.

At first, one might be tempted, if knowing Mozenrath's story and not personally, to offer pity and reflect on injustice and concern. For Mozenrath was a stray dog, beaten and abused in respects to how his former master Destane had been privileged to treat him at his crueler leisure. And like a stray, he had no real home or base, and so wandered without direction, a snarl on his face, scars on his back, and the freedom to behave at his own convenience, determined to live if not just to spite the conditions that would have him die.

There was respect in that, perhaps even admiration for the dog's spirit. But insolence had destroyed any hopes for apathy. He was a dog who wasn't fighting for a bone or a warm bed, but something all together unseen, coveted by this strange, stray dog, something of value only to him. There was misunderstanding, and so following, the public's scorn.

But the failings of his body, his lack of skill to carry his tall build stately, could have been forgiven if he had a pleasing face. His face, however, was the biggest culmination of troubling contradictions, and therefore could not pull it off. Granted, his best features were his eyes. They were large, heavily lidded, with thick black lashes and dark pupils that should have made him striking. But Mozenrath did not use his eyes as a way to express emotion, or any flattering manner at all, but shut them off to the world.

So constantly there was a bored look upon his face, bored, apathetic, and too much like a spoiled child for most people's tastes. It made you want to shake him once more, just to get him to react with some sort of interest.

While there was the potential for femininity in Mozenrath's high cheekbones, smooth brown, and soft, larger lips, but there was the contrast in his nose, gender, and attitude, and so the effect was ruined and dashed. It would make one think the only time Mozenrath _must _be pleasing to the eye would be in his sleep or in defeat, when his personality could not interfere.

It had to be understood that it was indeed his attitude that crippled his ability to satisfy someone's opinion of him. There is a limitation in how much appearance matters; that is the decisive reality, the truth that ultimately leads the fashionable to rip out his or her own hair in mourning of the fantastical proved false.

The great people of our world have not, by a rule, been gods and goddesses. They have been common people, with forgettable faces, who have done unforgettable things, so keen was their desire to be something more than their physicality. When one sees a heroic, good, brilliant, or profound person take their stand, you transgress the sheer shallow necessity of a pretty or handsome face. It can be done, on a small scale or not. Man is a forgivable being, and with the proper motivation, can adopt perfect blindness to an ugly face.

But Mozenrath's greatest faults stemmed from a bottomless pool of blackness inside. One of the great mysteries of his time was just how this young man became so damaged, so battered and betrayed by the natural grace of things. He was one of his century's first great mistakes, a blunder of such magnitude there is no wonder the world tried to hide away it's shamed creation

Mozenrath bore the brunt of the ugliest of sins of man. Destane wronged him. His family wronged him. The world wronged him. When it came right down to it, there was something in his nature that made it _easy, natural _even, to wrong him. And, as to be expected, it left multiple impressions, which culminated and heaped up to an awful state of death in his soul. Inside, what could have been a great man forfeited, and was left to give birth to many sorts of personality flaws.

As a child, Mozenrath was too old for his age. When he grew, he adopted behaviors, like fits of temper, and childish relishing of small, petty victories, too young for his age. He would pout, he would sulk, and he would put no visible effort into bettering himself, because in his mind, there was no point. What need was there to refurbish the soul of man dead already?

He found justice in his cruelty of others, hobby in his perusal of dark, forbidden magics and justification of his obsession with his enemies. He found serenity in indifference to other's pain, and joy in inflicting damage, perhaps because it mirrored his own.

In short, Mozenrath's physical flaws could not be forgiven if his true self was marred as well. This, in turn, just adds accuracy to the first essential statement; Mozenrath shouldn't be pretty.

And yet, as Mozenrath's ivory throat convulsed in fear as he was pressed into his place in the guillotine, as his eyes grew depths unimaginable, pools of misery and anguish, there was a change. As his lips were rewet constantly by a nervous, flickering tongue, as his thin chest heaved, and his hands gripped empty air, bound behind him as his wrists were, something snapped in a mass of deviation. He was vulnerable, his knees bent in submission, soiling his fine clothes, and haughty words ripped from his throat as he spotted the blade glittering above him, and finally Aladdin surmised right before the overly-loud drop of death that Mozenrath was,

_Pretty. _

(If only for a moment)


End file.
